Mather House Retreat

The good stuff first. Great English breakfast! Instant coffee available in the room. However, the room was tiny and the bed was short. I am 5ft 8" tall and my feet hung over the edge. No hot water for our entire 3 night stay and a staff member let it slip that the boiler was not working and the whole place was out of hot water. The manager had told us it was just our room and kept saying it would be fixed and it never was. Construction going on adjacent to the hotel and dozers onsite all day long. Place generally rundown. After asking for an adjustment in the bill for these issues we were given a 10% discount.

We should have realised when we read the "remove your boots" sign that this place could be a disappointment. The room was awful, dirty and unloved. The wonder (to us) is how they have decent reviews on Tripadvisor, reviews that we read before booking. Rather than write a boring diatribe, just look at photos we took during the fifteen minutes it took us to decide we were leaving. And then look at our other hotel/B&B reviews on Tripadvisor - we try to be fair. We've tried to contact the owners since but they took all the money and wouldn't respond to us. And we waited a while to see if they were going to refund at least some of our money before writing this. Sorry.